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The object in the sentence

"Eighty-six forty-five."

refers to the 45th president of the US, as in Bush 41 vs. Bush 43.

The meaning of the verb eighty-six – eject, bar, reject, discard, cancel (Google) – has been addressed in several answers here (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4).

Should forty-five be capitalized? Is it a proper noun?

uhoh
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    There's a silent down vote; is there something that needs to be done to improve the question? – uhoh Jul 12 '17 at 07:53
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    I believe this is an appropriate and interesting question, and I have upvoted. Thanks for asking it. – Davo Jul 12 '17 at 13:27
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    It's no sentence, but if it's a headline, your caps are there and your problem solved. – Yosef Baskin Jul 12 '17 at 14:59
  • @Brillig I won't be convinced there is an obvious, ten-second-googlable rule for this particular example without ambiguity or counterexample until you post it as an answer and it meets with some acceptance here; you know, the stackexchange way. As long as this remains a comment that can't receive SE review, I won't know what to think of it. Why not post it! – uhoh Jul 12 '17 at 16:18
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    @YosefBaskin thanks for your comment. Can you tell me in what way it is not a valid English sentence? This (off-topic) community Wiki suggests several very short sentences, so I'm guessing that it's not the length of you are objecting to. Is it the validity of one of the words that you are questioning? – uhoh Jul 12 '17 at 16:34
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    The added period helps, but where are you using this play on words for Fire the President? It reads like a catchy title of an opinion piece. – Yosef Baskin Jul 12 '17 at 16:42
  • @YosefBaskin Nonsequitor! (another candidate for short sentence) Do you maintain it is not a sentence? If so why do you say this, can you explain? – uhoh Jul 12 '17 at 16:46
  • Can you say where you are using the sentence? No argument with its length. I am trying to help. – Yosef Baskin Jul 12 '17 at 16:50
  • @YosefBaskin can you explain how this would have any bearing on the capitalization? It is a sentence though, right? – uhoh Jul 12 '17 at 16:53
  • You have an unusual sentence. If you don't want to provide context, I'll just make up examples to help you. If the wording is a headline as it looks to me, you could use Eighty-Six Forty-Five. If it's in an editorial, you could use eighty-six forty-five. In that case, if you were open to a challenge, are you sure you want that bit of cuteness? On a college math final, I was eating a danish during the test and wrote, "Let Prune Danish = The value of A + B." The teacher did not deduct for that cuteness, a private joke, but I wouldn't use cute humor in a serious article. Just me. – Yosef Baskin Jul 12 '17 at 18:20
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    @YosefBaskin Why would you not capitalize the first word? Assuming that's an oversight, if you are confident that the subject would not be capitalized in this sentence, could you post that as an answer and possibly support it so one can understand why? Imagine it is together with other normal sentences in a paragraph of prose. Beyond that, I can't see how context would affect the capitalization. – uhoh Jul 12 '17 at 18:30
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    @YosefBaskin based on the definitions given it's an imperative, which can be read as "Eject Trump" – Chris H Jul 21 '17 at 10:58
  • "Should six be capitalized" could be added to the question. I vote yes, as it is part of the first word in the sentence. – jejorda2 Jul 21 '17 at 12:52

1 Answers1

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Two reasons why it should have inital caps. Neither alone is perfect.

"Forty-Five" in this case is essentially a nickname. A nickname would be capitalised. To stick to a related example, "Tricky Dick" always has capitals (on both words, Dick of course always would as it's a name).

Many style guides treat "Figure 45" as a proper noun in writing (I believe CMOS is one of the exceptions). By analogy "President 45" or "President Forty-Five" would be proper, then drop the "President".

As this is rather unusual, writing "eighty-six Forty-Five" draws attention to the proper noun, which is no bad thing.

Chris H
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